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Apocalypse Tank
"They will run in fear." :- Apocalypse Tank driver Tactical Analysis *'Unstoppable': The Apocalypse Tank can simply roll over anything that survives its main guns. Main battle tanks, let alone smaller vehicles, can easily be crushed under the Apocalypse tank's treads. *'The sinister M-Harpoon': The Apocalypse can effectively spear and reel in other vehicles using the M-harpoon, or even drag itself toward structures. However, the magnet requires an extreme amount of energy, so the tank's main guns are rendered inoperable while the M-harpoon is active. *'Built to Destroy...Tanks': While the Apocalypse Tank has nothing to fear from lesser vehicles, its crew's limited visibility combined with its armour-piercing ammunition means it is less effective against very small targets, namely infantry. Commanders also admit that the Apocalypse requires anti-air support. *'Worth its weight in ore': The Apocalypse Tank and its two main guns and 16-layer armour don't come cheap. On top of that, authorisation to deploy these vehicles in the field can only be granted by ranking members of the Soviet general staff itself. WWIII Operational History With a nickname like "Apocalypse", the Soviet Union's superheavy battle tank has certain expectations to live up to. And, unfortunately for the Union's enemies, it does. This monstrosity of a machine, while clearly slower and less manoeuvrable than the typical modern tank, overcompensates for any of its limitations with two extremely powerful main guns, each one markedly stronger than the main gun on a lesser tank. Even amid all the calamities of war, the choking black smoke and piercing shriek of grinding metal emanating from an Apocalypse Tank is the stuff of nightmares for combat veterans--including Soviets, who seem to fear the Apocalypse Tank as much as anyone. On the whole, the Soviet Union is extremely proud of the Apocalypse, which is widely featured in military multimedia propaganda, military recruitment mailings, motivational posters found in businesses and classrooms, and more. While a cadre of schoolmasters denounced the naming of the vehicle as an act of fear-mongering, the Soviet government quickly quelled these concerns by insisting that the name was intended to give hope to the people -- here is a tank that can withstand anything, they proudly said. The schoolmasters held fast, claiming that the name betrayed evidence of the Union's dissolution into an agenda of mutually-assured destruction with the Allies. They remain incarcerated. The Apocalypse Tank even became popularised in a morning cartoon show and toy line ("They Are Not Allies"), at which point it truly became an icon not in the Soviet Union's military arsenal, and all over the world. Such mainstream success is impossible to anticipate completely. However, the plant responsible for it, Arkhangelsk Tank Plant (ATP), boldly promised the Soviet regime that the Apocalypse would revolutionise modern vehicle warfare by trivialising other, lesser tanks. This proved to be quite true. While the Apocalypse Tank is very expensive to produce for all its Soviet excesses whether on the field or in rear factories, it is virtually unstoppable on the ground. The Apocalypse is such a massive vehicle that ATP engineers installed a second set of cutting treads into its massive hull, enabling it to simply roll over just about anything that survives long enough to get in its way. To further offset the tank's relatively slow speed is a now-standard magnetic harpoon secondary weapon, one of the first practical military tools based on the Union's continuing research into magnetism. Essentially this works like an industrial-strength grapple that can be used, for example, to tow fast-moving enemy vehicles in closer for the kill -- straight into its "meat grinder" chain-treads, which can carve through metal much like their namesake. For all the fervour, fear, and excitement caused by the Apocalypse Tank, it is to be expected that the design would draw some disdain. Outspoken critics and foreign protesters of Arkhangelsk's most famous work (with respect to the far more common Hammer Tank) point to its horrendous top speed, as well as its complete lack of anti-aircraft defences, as evidence of sheer hubris on the part of the Apocalypse Tank's manufacturers. ATP, in turn, openly brushed aside these claims as "idiocy", announcing simultaneously that the Apocalypse Tank would go into mass production that same year. At any rate, because of this tank's notoriety, the identities of Apocalypse Tank crews are kept secret by the Soviet Union. It is difficult to imagine what sort of person would be fit to operate such a weapon, let alone what the experience of this would do to that person. Post-War Operational History The power of the Apocalypse's Magnetic Harpoon has been increased greatly, allowing it to suck multiple small vehicles in at a time. However, opening the front armour to engage the M-Harpoon reveals the delicate insides of the Apocalypse Tank, allowing enemies to destroy it ever so easily if the "harpoon'd" unit was a decoy. In addition, reviews of combat performance and a ego-shattering phone call from the Premier's office to Arkhangelsk's headquarters have led to the introduction of missile pods, a weapon popularized by the JS-2 Mammoth Tank during the Second World War. These weapons are being attached as hastily as possible, though the difficulty of bringing a tank the size of a house in for retrofitting has been noted. The Apocalypse tank has also had more armour installed as well as improvements to the Drakon Cannons. However, neither of these improvements come cheap, so an Apocalypse tank now costs even more to produce. Just the Stats "There is no better tank in the world than the JS-4. Nothing on treads can stand even a remote chance of beating it one-on-one. It's armour is proof against '''modern' weapons. It's gun would be more at home on a destroyer than a tank, and it's got two."'' :- Open Sketchbook Category:Units Category:Tanks Category:Units Originating from Russia